Latin/Adjectives Lesson 1

Welcome back to Latin for Wikiversity! If you’re just joining us and want to catch up, the links you will need on the right.

New Grammar
This week we begin a unit on adjectives. Latin adjectives break down into two basic groups: those declined like nouns of the 1st and 2nd declensions; and those declined (more or less) like nouns of the third declension. It is important to remember the rule that an adjective must agree in case, number, and gender with the noun it modifies. I’ve already introduced several adjectives of the 1st/2nd declension variety; they are fairly easy to master because the endings are the same as the nouns of the first and second declension. This week we will focus just on this easier group. To see a complete declension, with masculine, feminine and neuter, here is a chart of the endings:

For complete declensions and better formatting, see adjective declensions

Adjectives must agree with the noun they modify in case, number, and gender. Adjectives of quantity (how big? how many?) usually precede their nouns, while adjectives of quality (what kind of?) usually follow them... although this rule is bent a lot. (Sometimes in Latin poetry you’ll find an adjective a few lines removed from its noun, but I’ll try to keep our sentences less confusing.) Just be careful – 3rd declension nouns combined with these adjectives can be tricky, and so can those 1st declension masculine nouns.

Yes, these above are all review from past lessons!

New vocabulary
And here are a few new adjectives following:

Practice
Next time, we’ll learn the declension for 3rd declension adjectives. Bonam fortūnam!